Many Faces of Orlando: Ema Nikolovska & Sean Shibe

Two of the most imaginative artists of their generation, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska and guitarist Sean Shibe join forces for a bold, genre-defying journey through the many lives of Orlando. Drawing on the legendary figure’s passage from medieval epic to Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novel, the programme explores love, conflict, identity, and transformation across centuries.

Songs by Dowland, Schubert, Pauline Viardot, Thomas Adès, Laurie Anderson, Bob Dylan, and others are woven together with spoken text and new music by Sasha Scott and Cassandra Miller. The result is a musical and literary collage in which troubadour song, art song, contemporary music, and storytelling meet—an experience The Times (London) described as “being awake in a vivid dream.”